How This Guy Makes Incredible Sand Art

[calm music]

[Andres] I'm trying to time it as the tide is going out,

but eventually it's gonna come back.

Once it does, then the clock is ticking.

My name is Andres Amador.

I'm best known for doing large scale artworks on the beach.

[Narrator] Most artists strive to make something

that might end up in a museum one day,

something permanent, but not Amador.

His work only lasts a few hours.

So the design will disappear,

inevitably, no questions.

The tide is going to return and it's going to wash it away.

And no matter how much I might want to hold onto

whatever I created, built into this artwork

is a letting go of the creation.

[Narrator] Lots of people find it calming to scratch ideas

in the sand.

But Amador takes this idea to the next level.

Over the past 15 years, he's etched close to 1000

awe inspiring designs onto beaches around the world.

During low tide, I have a wet canvas

that's as big as the beach will offer me.

And I'll rake on that, which turns over the sand

that is a bit dry on the top, but it's still wet below.

And so that contrast, those are the lines.

Those are my brush strokes.

[Narrator] He draws a lot of inspiration

from a mathematical principle known as fractals,

which are essentially patterns that repeat themselves

over and over, no matter the scale.

Fractals are the mathematical way

to connect to what's happening in nature.

The way that I'm connecting to a natural pattern is through

recognizing that there is a process that's occurring.

When you talk about the fractal in nature

it's so, similar, so what's happening at the small level

is also happening at the large level, generally speaking.

And now I might be vastly simplifying it,

but really that's only because that's the way

that I'm able to connect to this.

I need to keep things relatively simple

so that I can keep it together for myself.

[Narrator] Once he comes up with the design,

the trick is figuring out how to translate that idea

onto a canvas that's constantly changing.

Amador has a degree in environmental science

and worked for years as a computer technician,

but he always had artistic ambitions.

In 2004, he was on vacation in Hawaii

drawing circles in the sand when he had an epiphany.

It dawned on me that I could create designs

at enormous level by using geometry.

The beach was the perfect place.

And as soon as I realized that it was off and running.

[Narrator] The first step in his process

is choosing which style to work with.

The two major categories of my artwork,

I would call the geometric and the organic.

But that could also be called like the classical physics

and the Newtonian, where there is right angles

and straight lines and prescribed dimensions

versus chaos and randomness.

[Narrator] If he's going the geometric route,

he'll start by designing the pattern

in an app called Concepts.

When I'm doing the geometric work,

there is built into the design a natural ending point.

So maybe the largest has been maybe 200 feet across.

And the more organic artwork can go on

for hundreds and hundreds of feet

or tens of thousands of square feet,

filling up a whole beach area

because really there's no boundary to it.

So I can just keep going.

The geometric is an exercise in intellectual ability.

With the organic, it's emerging in the moment.

There's a spontaneity that is really, it's delightful.

I resonate much more with that.

That said over the years, as I've discovered more ways

to engage the spectrum of the structured and the organic,

now my work weaves back and forth.

One of the problems with doing the geometric art

is that because it's so perfect, it looks just like a stamp.

People would accuse me online

that I was Photoshopping it in there.

[Narrator] One way to avoid that critique

is to integrate the designs into the environment.

These days I'm looking for one that offers features

on the beach that I can engage.

So just having a design on a big, open, expansive beach,

there's not that feeling of place

that this artwork is existing within a location.

So I desire to have interesting features on the beach.

So rock out crops or a spur of the mountain,

that's going down into the water

or the cliff side that I can just blend into

so the design gets disrupted by the landscape in some way,

or it has to move around the landscape

in some way that the artwork and the landscape

are involved in a dialogue.

So these are my main tools, extendable rake,

thinner rakes, and these are also extendable,

and these are for fine lines and also for a bit of marking.

And then this pole here I'll be using today

so that I can create guides for myself.

So this is the area that I want to do the work in.

I really want to include these rocks.

So my first step is to determine how long

this thing is going to be.

For expediency, I'll be using some rope and a tape measure

so that I can quickly mark out my points.

From the center point, I'm gonna create an outer perimeter.

There really isn't a circle in this design,

but I'm creating a hexagon,

six lines coming out of the center,

but really three straight lines

that divide the circle into six parts, six pie shapes.

So, right now we're looking at one of the pie slices

of the six slices that I have created.

From those pies shapes, I'll start to connect

some of the outer points to create

what will eventually become the grid.

Then I'll go to a different tool.

So it's a pole with two nails in it,

which will create a perfectly separated pathway.

I'll use that to start blocking out major areas.

At that point, the canvas is going to be

just be full of crisscrossing lines everywhere.

And the challenge at that point is going to be keeping it

straight where I am.

And then I will take my expanding rake to make thick lines.

That's the place where it's very easy to get lost.

It is totally like being in a maze.

Once I make a mark in the sand,

that mark pretty much can't go away.

Almost invariably on every piece I do.

I make some mark that's wrong.

So there's an error in every one of my designs.

[Narrator] Over the past decade,

he turned his hobby into a profession.

He sells prints from photos he takes with his drone.

He does commissions and he also leads workshops

with other aspiring beach artists.

I would say there's two main challenges.

There's a time constraint.

So I'm very aware of the tide.

When it's hit its maximum low and it's coming back,

or if it's already coming back,

like the time pressure of, if I don't finish this soon,

then a major chunk of this could get washed away.

I have had many times where I'm just nearing the finish

and a wave comes and just eats out huge chunks of it.

And then the next challenge is to, really,

to keep my step straight because it's easy to get lost

in the process and to be looking at my instructions,

scratching my head as to what does that mean right here

on the ground that I'm supposed to be doing.

I can see on the paper what it means,

but what does that mean right here?

I've been in that situation so many times

because I had a very complex design

and while I was designing, it seemed very obvious

what would happen next and where that would be.

But on the ground, the distance is so big

that it's easy to lose track of what's happening.

So keeping it together,

that really is the biggest challenge, ultimately.

Because if you can't keep it together

and you're spending your time trying to figure it out,

then you're using up time.

So what I try to design towards is where I minimize

the places where I need to be making decisions

while I'm working.

And that each step is very clear.

I'm minimizing how much I need to think about it

as I'm working.

Even if when I complete a piece and it's perfect,

it's gonna go away.

There's nothing I can do about it,

but the process to get there is as important

or perhaps more important.

And so this art is connected me to the act as it's happening

and the value of focusing on that experience

versus the result.

[birds cawing]